Deeplinks Blog posts about Travel Screening

The Department of Homeland Security's attempt to quietly assign "risk assessment" scores to tens of milions of law-abiding American citizens (not to mention foreign nationals) may be approaching a roadblock. According to an Associated Press article:

Incoming Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont pledged greater scrutiny of such government database-mining projects after reading that during the past four years millions of Americans have been evaluated without their knowledge to assess the risks that they are terrorists or criminals.

"Data banks like this are overdue for oversight," said Leahy, who will take over Judiciary in January. "That is going to change in the new Congress."

In a recent article, the Guardian covers the manyprivacy-invasive initiatives being implemented as part of airport security screening. The journey starts with a seemingly innocous event -- finding another traveler's ticket stub:

"If the expert was right, this stub would enable me to access Broer's personal information, including his passport number, date of birth and nationality. It would provide the building blocks for stealing his identity, ruining his future travel plans - and even allow me to fake his passport.

Citing data security concerns, the TSA on Thursday informed a Senate committee that its controversial Secure Flight program would be delayed indefinitely. In written testimony, the Government Accountability Office also noted that Secure Flight "may not be adequately protected against unauthorized access and use or disruption."

Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaffirmed [PDF] in a letter to Congress that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) violated the Privacy Act, lying to the public about collecting and using private data in testing Secure Flight. The letter also reveals that the TSA collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers.

Homeland Security officials who defied Congress and misled the public by creating secret files on American citizens while testing a new passenger screening program may have engaged in multiple counts of criminal conduct, and at least one employee has already lied to cover-up the misdeed.